


New Beginnings

by punygod



Category: Marvel
Genre: M/M, Winterhawk Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punygod/pseuds/punygod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunch of stuff I wrote for Winterhawk Week. Thought I'd put them up here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Meeting - Then and Now

When Clint Barton first meets Bucky Barnes, there’s a flash of recognition in Clint’s eyes, but none in Bucky’s. The introduction is kept short and Steve does most of the in between talking. There’s none of Clint’s normal jokes and casualness, and Bucky’s not very talkative these days anyway. After explaining that Bucky would be staying in the tower along with the rest of them, Steve leaves Clint and Bucky to get to know each other.

Except Clint doesn’t say anything, and if he’s not prompted, then Bucky doesn’t feel the need to say anything either. Clint mutters an awkward, “I’m just gonna—” and shuffles out of the room.

The first time Clint Barton and the Winter Soldier meet, they’re on a rooftop of a building in a small province in Belarus. Clint’s arrow is drawn and aimed through the seventh storey window of the building opposite; the Winter Soldier’s handheld automatic is trained to the slight left of Clint’s sternum.

“Leave,” he orders, his voice husky and muffled through the mask he wears covering the lower half of his face. There’s a touch of some sort of European accent to the word, but like it’s been influenced, not inherited.

Clint draws his arrow back and drops both it and his bow to ground, holding his hands up, palms up, in surrender. His eyes flick to his mark in the other building who’s still sitting at his desk, just waiting for Clint to complete his kill order mission.

“You working for that guy?” Clint asks, nodding at his target over the Soldier’s shoulder. The Winter Soldier doesn’t blink or break his gaze at all, far too trained – or insensitive – to fall for that trick which played on the weakness of human curiosity.

“Step away,” he says, in the same emotionless, commanding voice. For a second, his focus shifts, eyes darting to the right, but unseeing, as if listening to something Clint couldn’t hear, and it’s only when the Soldier raises his hand to fix his earpiece that Clint realises he’s taking orders from someone.

“Move. Now,” the Soldier says, taking a step forward which brings his gun that much closer to Clint’s chest.

There’s commotion in the other building that Clint can see over the Soldier’s shoulder, and knows that his game is probably up anyway. Dammit. He needed that money.

But he’s acted too slowly for the Winter Soldier who’s already received his kill order. There’s a split second when Clint notices the tensing in the wrist of the Soldier’s right arm holding the gun, and knows what’s happening. The range is too short, and Clint’s human reflexes are too slow. Two shots fire and the bullets hit one after the other, embedding themselves deep into Clint’s chest.

Clint’s knocked backwards by the impact, blood already seeping in steady streams through the open wounds and he’s drifting into unconsciousness by the time he hits the ground.

The bullets miss his heart. Barely. The Soldier’s disappeared by the time Clint’s backup arrives.

Clint was a smudge on the Winter Soldier’s near perfect kill count. If the Winter Soldier had orders to have you dead, you died. But not Clint. He’d escaped – granted, with major damage to his respiratory system and muscles tissue, but he’d lived even when the Winter Soldier had been ordered to not let it be so.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” The question’s been bugging Clint ever since he’d found out the Winter Soldier existed. That he turned out to be Captain America’s best friend and Clint’s childhood hero was indicative of the fucked up world he lived in that he had long since gotten used to.

Bucky’s sitting on his couch in front of his TV watching a repeat of the News he’s already seen that morning.

“What?”

“You had possible the easiest kill shot in the wold, and yet you didn’t take it. It wasn’t a mistake that I survived.”

Bucky’s memory is still blotchy at best, but he knows what Clint’s talking about. It was a memory that had come back to him after a few weeks of being in the tower, a few weeks after Steve had introduced Clint to him.

“I’d been four weeks out of cryo tracking you down at that point,” he says, his voice stable like he’s telling a story he’d maybe practiced before in his head. He stands and walks around the back of the couch to Clint, and crosses his arms – clad in long sleeves – over his chest. “That’s usually how long I go – how long I got to go before they put me back in.” Where _in_ was, he didn’t have to say. Everyone knew his story by now. “The longer I spent out of it, the more will I get to defy my – _their_ orders.”

“So you made the choice not to kill me?”

“Essentially.”

“Huh.” Clint chews at his bottom lip, and then shrugs. “And I thought it was because you took one look at me and realised you couldn’t kill a man this attractive.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow in on Clint, taking in the bandages taped over his nose, and eyebrow, and the messy scruff of his hair that looks like it’s seen a comb never.

“…It’s not a good day for me, today,” Clint adds, seeing the look Bucky’s giving him.

“Is any day a good day for you?”

“Point.”

“I ordered pizza.”

“To watch the News?”

“Yeah.”

“…count me in.”


	2. Disabilities - Empty Sleeves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could just foresee it accidentally dipping into pumpkin soup or something equally disastrous.

“Stop squirming!”

“Stop breathing down my neck, then!”

Clint just rolls his eyes and blows a puff of air at Bucky’s face, making Bucky wrinkle his nose.

“Quit being a baby,” Clint says, grabbing Bucky’s shoulders to still him, “or I’m going to end up pricking you.”

They’re both dressed to the nines, in ironed slacks and buttoned shirts. Clint’s ready to go but Bucky’s still got his bowtie hanging loose around his neck and his left shirt sleeve to be pinned up. It was taking longer than it should have because Clint was right up in Bucky’s space, focusing hard on folding the empty sleeve just like how the YouTube tutorial had shown, his breath hitting Bucky under his collar making him shiver and giving rise to a reason to bicker.

“And…done!” Clint declares, stepping back and raising his hands, just waiting for the sleeve to fall back down despite his efforts. Bucky looks down at it too, and wriggles a bit, twisting his torso from side to side, but the pin remains, keeping the sleeve folded and perfectly in place, and he and Clint pass a glance in victory.

It was the first time Bucky was pinning up his sleeve. Hell, it was the first time he was going out without his metal arm at all. Technically it couldn’t really be called going out; the Avengers were assembling for dinner on Steve to commemorate a year as a team. Usually Bucky only went without the arm when he was at home with Clint, sometimes spending entire weekends without it when they both got the off chance to laze about in bed for two days in a row.

The other Avengers sometimes caught a glimpse of Bucky going armless by accident when they walked in on him when he’d thought he’d be alone, or after a mission where the arm had suffered damage and Bucky was forced to remove it. Tony saw the most of Bucky without his arm, aside from Clint. The two worked closely together to improve the arm, upgrading it when it needed to be, and maintaining its condition so Bucky wouldn’t have to suffer shoddy circuitry like he’d had to when he’d been with Hydra. It was Tony’s design that allowed the arm to be so easily removable.

But despite everyone’s acceptance of sometimes finding him with an empty shirt sleeve, Bucky still made sure those occurrences were rare. Today, however, while he was getting ready, he’d stared at himself in the mirror for a good ten minutes and thought, ‘why not?’ He was going to dinner with the people that he cared for and respected the most; he could afford to be completely, or incompletely himself.

The only problem was that the sleeve of his shirt had hung loose and empty by his side, and he could just foresee it accidentally dipping into pumpkin soup or something equally disastrous.

Clint had walked in on him trying and failing to one-handedly roll up the sleeve and pin it in place, and then they’d both spent the next hour looking up tutorials on how to do it properly. They only got distracted twice, and once was because of a video of a cat on a treadmill which shouldn’t count as a distraction; it just had to be watched.

“Hey, Alice, back to reality.” Clint snaps his fingers in front of Bucky’s face and Bucky blinks and comes out of his thoughts to see that Clint had just finished doing up his bowtie for him. He fiddles with it a bit, making it go crooked where Clint had _just_ straightened it up.

Clint bats his hand away. “You okay?” he asks, refixing the tie and lightly brushing imaginary dust off of Bucky’s shoulders.

Bucky hums, not quite an answer. The fingers of his good hand reach for Clint’s done up tie, and plays with it idly. He’s spent enough time not having to wear the arm that he knows he prefers to go without it. As much as it was a comfort thing, it was also a symbolic letting down of his guard. It was a part of him, yes, but like the way the shield was a part of Steve, and the armour was a part of Tony. Like a policeman would hang up his gun at the end of the day, Bucky liked being able to hang up the arm when he didn’t _need_ to use it. (He means hang up literally, too; Clint had once found the arm with its fingers hooked on the coat rack, and had since then taken every opportunity to throw that in Bucky’s face when Bucky got on his case about leaving his hearing aids lying about).

“Buuucky,” Clint sing songs, and leans up to peck Bucky softly on the lips to bring him back out of his thoughts once again. Bucky looks at him and smiles, and chases after a little kiss for himself.

“I’m good. Let’s go. I hope there’s finger food. Using cutlery is a bitch.”  


	3. Snipers - Eugene and Bruno

When Clint and Bucky finally return to the tower from the fair, Clint clutching a huge fluffy purple unicorn, and Bucky holding a giant teddy on his hip and the remainder of his fairy floss in the other hand, they’re both met with Steve’s Disapproving Face.

“That’s _cheating.”_

“It ain’t!” Bucky says defensively, holding on more tightly to the bear Clint had won him in an epic display of hand eye coordination by obliterating all six balloons at the Balloon Dart stall.

“You are _trained_ agents,” Steve maintains, hands on his hips, though his Disapproving Face is softening into a more I’m Surrounded By Dorks Face. “You are trained agents, playing kids’ games. That’s not at all fair.”

“Oh, _please,_ ” Clint scoffs, “like carnival games are _fair_. Remember that Five Pin Bowling one, Buck? There was no _way_ the pins were gonna fall over if you hadn’t thrown the puck that hard. One of the pins still had its bottom glued to the table. You should’ve seen the owner’s face when he handed over the giraffe plushie.”

“Wait, I don’t see any giraffe plushies?”

Bucky sighs at that. “We couldn’t carry all the prizes we won,” he says forlornly, “so we handed them out to a couple of the kids who were getting scammed by the dodgy stalls. But then Clint won me Eugene, and there was no way in hell I was letting some pesky kid have him just to have his ears ripped off and his stuffing pulled out.”

Steve narrows his eyes at the teddy bear Bucky’s holding. “Why is your teddy bear called Eugene?”

“Because he _looks_ like a Eugene,” Bucky says indignantly, looking like he’d very well have covered the teddy bear’s ears if it hadn’t been for the fair floss he was holding as well.

Steve’s Disapproving Face is gone, well and truly taken over by his My Friends Are Actual Five Year Olds Face. “Let me guess, Clint’s pony has a name too?” He’s almost afraid to ask.

Clint huffs. “Yes, if you must know. It’s Bruno. And he’s a unicorn, not a pony.”

There’s a pause while Steve figures out what to say. He doesn’t want to joke about it, because Clint and Bucky look deadly serious, so he settles on, “Of course, how could I be so stupid? I’m just – I’ll just leave you two with – uh – Eugene and Bruno, then. Glad you had fun and all.” He makes a quick exit, and Clint and Bucky only last two seconds after he’s gone before they crack up, snickering.

“ _Bruno?_ Of all the names you could come up with for a pony, you go for _Bruno?_ ”

“Watch it, Barnes, he’s a _unicorn_.”

“You’re ridiculous. C’mere.”

And then they make out with their stuffed toys caught between them, Clint doing a good job of licking the taste of fairy floss out of Bucky’s mouth.


	4. Injuries - Grilled Cheese & Booty Shorts

“I’m hungry.”

“Then eat.”

“But the food’s all the way over there!”

“Then go get it.”

“I can’t, Bucky.”

Bucky finally gives in and looks away from the TV where some cop show was on that Clint had insisted they watch – not that Bucky necessarily had been – and turns to face Clint, raising an eyebrow at him appraisingly. 

Clint knows exactly what he’s doing to Bucky and tries and fails to keep the shit-eating grin off his face. He lifts his leg that’s perched on the edge of the coffee table, all plastered up, to remind Bucky that he really really can’t get up to grab something to eat from the kitchen.

He’d broken his leg during the last mission, having fallen out of a building five storeys up through a glass window. He’d landed on his right ankle at the wrong angle which had caused him to fracture his fibula – not critically, but enough for Steve to give him a lecture about it and bench him for the next few weeks until he was well and truly healed.

Clint had mumbled something about how when Captain America does it, it’s fine, but when he does it, he gets benched, which had earned him some serious shade from Steve about how some people had super-serum which gave them enhanced healing and enabled them to actually walk the day after.

Sometimes Clint hated being the only human on a team of gods of supersoldiers.

The only solace he had in getting benched was that he at least had Bucky to keep him company when the others suited up and fled to the latest distress call. He’d thought perhaps that would mean some sexy alone time, but Bucky had insisted they weren’t doing anything with Clint’s leg in a cast.

Bucky, despite having drastically improved over the past months, with time between episodes only increasing more and more, was still not yet cleared for field activity. It bugged him to no end having to be confined to the tower while everyone else ran off to save the world – and ever since this thing with Clint had started, he’d become even more restless waiting for the team to return home, not knowing the shape they’d be coming back in, if they were coming back at all.

It doesn’t help that he knows exactly how reckless Clint can be on the field, if the ever present stitches and bandages Clint sports are anything to go by – though Bucky’s sure at least half of them are only from walking into walls. This is the first time Bucky’s seen Clint injure himself badly enough to put him out of commission, so he’s understandably a little freaked.

“And whose fault is that?” he says, nodding to Clint’s leg, and Clint wriggles his toes sticking out at the end.

“I didn’t jump out of that building intending to break my leg.”

“But you still jumped out of it.’

“Because I had to! I had a shot to make – and don’t start preaching to me about stupid ideas, Barnes. I grew up reading all about the half-assed plans you came up with which nearly got you booty-short butt killed.”

If anyone was looking, they would have noticed the tips of Bucky’s ears turning the slightest shade of red. Luckily, Clint was looking and cracked a grin in glee.

“Yeah, I know about the booty shorts.”

Bucky glares at him, and then nonchalantly says, “I rocked them, though.”

Clint waggles his eyebrows at him suggestively. “I know.”

Bucky groans at that and pushes himself off the couch to leave, ignoring Clint’s protests of, “Hey, what? Your ass looks great, baby, come back!” to head to the kitchen.

He returns a little while later with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches. “Here you go,” he says, flopping back down onto the couch, and places the plate on Clint’s lap, stealing one of the sandwiches for himself.

Clint looks like a five year old in a candy store and immediately starts on a sandwich of his own, groaning loudly when he bites into the melted cheese and crunchy toast. “You’re the best,” he says, and leans over to give Bucky a smooch on the cheek. “I should jump out of –”

“No.” Bucky cuts him off before he can finish, not at all wanting to think about Clint jumping off of more buildings.

It’s the look in Bucky’s eye that tells Clint not to keep joking about it. He changes tact, not that tact is something that Clint has a lot of to begin with. 

“It’s just a broken leg, Bucky. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Exactly,” is Bucky’s curt response, and Clint realises then that this whole ordeal has effected Bucky more than he’d let on.

“What do you want me to do? Wear a helmet and padding and use blunted arrows? I’m gonna get hurt. It’s literally in the job description.”

“I know,” Bucky sighs, dropping his half eaten sandwich back onto the plate, and leans against Clint, slipping his arm under Clint’s to tangle them together, the ridged metal a contrast to the smooth tan of Clint’s skin, not without its fair share of patched up lacerations. “I just wish I could be out there with you.”

“Like a babysitter, you mean?” Clint doesn’t need a babysitter. He wasn’t helpless. He was, perhaps, a little more fragile, and prone to more injuries than the average superhero, but he wasn’t helpless, and he doesn’t like Bucky thinking he was. He shrugs his arm a little, trying to get it out of Bucky’s.

“No,” Bucky says quickly, because that’s not what he’d meant at all, and Clint stops squirming.

“Then?”

“I hate waiting for you to come home, wondering what the hell’s happening.”

“You know it’s only a matter of time before you’re suiting up with the rest of us – and then I can get on your ass for trying stupid stunts. You have ‘I try stupid stunts’ written all over you.”

Bucky smirks, and turns his head to look at Clint. “Do I? Where?”

“Mm…right here.” He leans up and presses a tiny kiss to the tip of Bucky’s nose, which makes Bucky scrunch it up, but he’s no longer freaking out about Clint returning home with a broken skull. Or not at all. He’d probably start freaking out the next time Clint has to go out on a mission, but for now, he’s got Clint to himself for the next couple of weeks.


	5. AU - Coffeeeee

After the usual morning rush of grumpy, barely-awake businessmen and women ordering their triple espressos and then quickly hurrying off to their high paying office job, Bucky’s café becomes quiet and relaxed. There’s still a steady trickle of people coming in and ordering some of the more adventurous types of hot chocolates and coffees, but not nearly as much that Bucky has to be on his feet all the time. He knows when the peak hours are, and yearns for the times in between when he can take it easy and actually concentrate on making good, delicious coffee without an entire queue of people waiting for him to hurry the fuck up.

His missing left arm means that he works a little slower than the average barista, but his coffee was of the best standards, and he made up for the missing hand by being twice as efficient. He was the best barista on the block, and it kept his business going.

Bucky has a knack for recognising his regulars, and he has quite a few of them. He even remembers when they’d hit ten coffees and it’s time for their free one. His favourite used to be Mr Dugan, who insisted on being called Dum Dum, because that’s who he was during the war and that’s how he wanted to be remembered. He ordered the same cappuccino chiaro every day and had a new story to tell Bucky of what he and his boys got up to during the second world war.

But Bucky has a new favourite now.

The guy had stumbled into the café for the first time about three weeks ago, not that Bucky keeps count or anything, he just has a good memory, okay? The guy – who’d later given his name as Clint when he’d ordered himself a double espresso – always came in a little past noon, always looking like he’d just gotten out of bed, and always with his dog trailing in behind him.

Bucky was smitten from the get-go.

Bucky knew Clint’s order now, but sometimes Clint surprised him by asking for something sweet instead, switching to a mocha one day, and a hot chocolate the next. He said he wanted to eventually try everything of Bucky’s and Bucky had bristled a little with pride. They chit-chatted while Bucky made the order, and Bucky had discovered a new hatred for the milk steaming wand because it was loud and Clint never seemed to pick up on what he was saying. That cut half a minute out of chatting time with Clint, and Bucky didn’t appreciate it one bit.

But they talked enough to learn little bits about each other. Bucky learned that Clint lived alone in a loft apartment a few blocks from the shop. He learned that Clint had rescued Lucky from a group of thugs after the dog had pretty much saved his life. And in turn, Clint learned that Bucky had started working at the café when he was in high school, and the shop had then been passed onto him when the previous owner left for an early retirement. He learned that Bucky had lost his arm when he’d fallen off a cliff whilst he and a friend had been hiking. They both learned they loved video games and swore that they were both better than the other, no competition.

Clint never stayed long in the shop, but Bucky noticed – and perhaps it was only wishful thinking – that as the days went by, Clint seemed to linger just a little longer before thanking Bucky for the coffee and rushing out of the café with Lucky at his heels. He always left Bucky with a dazed, goofy look on his face, and it wasn’t until the third week when Dum Dum pointed out that he ‘had it bad, kid,’ that Bucky decided to man up and just ask Clint out. What was the worst that could happen?

He was fidgety the entire day, going over in his head exactly what he’d say to Clint. He mucked up an order or two, he was that distracted. But when twelve o’ clock rolled around, Dum Dum seated in his usual place at the window shooting Bucky looks, Bucky was totally ready. He was going to do it.

Except when he did, Clint all but ignored him.

Bucky had waited until Clint was just about to leave, having taken up that much time just to rack up the courage to say the little words out loud. He’d blurted out a hasty, “Do you wanna go out with me?” just as Clint turned around with coffee in hand, and had watched, dejected, as Clint simply walked right out of the shop.

He’d looked to Dum Dum helplessly, who’d shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, kid.”  

Bucky was sulky for the rest of the day, and the day after. He hadn’t thought Clint would be coming in again, but lo and behold, just like clockwork, there he was, Lucky padding in after him.

Bucky’s quiet while he makes the coffee, his reply short and curt when Clint asks him how he’s doing. He wants to snap and say and he would’ve appreciated a ‘no’ instead of blatant ignoring, but he’s not sure if Clint’s just going to ignore him again so he keeps it to himself.

Eventually, once the coffee’s been paid for and handed over, Clint breaks the silence. “Hey, man, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky says, not looking at Clint, his hand gripping the counter.

“Well, you don’t look it. Something happen?”

Bucky gives Clint an incredulous look. Was he _really_ pretending yesterday never happened? It was just making things even more horrible for Bucky.

“ _Yes_ , something happened. I asked out a guy and he just ignored me completely. Acted like I hadn’t said anything at all.”

Clint looks like he hadn’t expected to hear that, and raises an eyebrow, taking a sip out of his cup. “Well. Can’t win ‘em all, right?”

Bucky gapes at him. Yeah, he should’ve just kept quiet. Clint rubbing it in was much, much worse. “You don’t have to be such a dick about it,” he mumbles, “I just would’ve preferred a real answer than you walking out of here and pretending it.”

“Wait – what?”

“You heard me. You’re being a _dick._ ”

“You asked _me_ out? _When?_ ”

Bucky’s considering slapping him for acting so clueless. What was the point? Did Clint find this funny? Bucky sure as hell didn’t.

“Yesterday! Right before you walked out – don’t fucking pretend you didn’t hear me.”

Clint gets an understanding looking in his eye, followed up by a somewhat sad one. He turns his head to the side, and points to his ear. When Bucky looks, he sees a skin coloured device lodged inside. Hearing aids.

“I – you’re deaf?”

Clint turns back around and grins sheepishly, shrugging. “Yeah. I _really_ didn’t hear you yesterday. I don’t hear you a lot of the time, but I can also read your lips, so I get by. Lucky helps when I’m out and about.”

It all makes sense now, and Bucky feels like a bit of a fool for getting mad at Clint for no reason. He scratches the back of his neck, wishing he hadn’t made such a big deal of everything. But if the reason Clint hadn’t given Bucky an answer yesterday was because he hadn’t heard the question in the first place, then maybe…

“So…if I were to ask you out to a movie this weekend, and you were to hear me say it this time…what would your answer be?”

Clint grins.

“Hell yeah.”

(Dum Dum cheers in the back ground.)


	6. AU - Fix My Pipes

When Clint wakes up that morning, (miracle), he find that his water’s not working, which means he can’t fix himself any coffee, which is a Major Problem. He swears at the tap for a good ten minutes, tries kicking the pipes beneath the sink and pleads with the coffee maker to please have some water left inside – but none of that gives him a single drop.

Eventually, he digs up the phone-book and calls the first plumber he finds – Bucky Barnes Plumbing. _Catchy._ A guy answers, and sounds like Clint’s call had actually just woken him up but says he can make it in an hour. Clint says he’ll pay him double if he can get to the apartment in half that time, and Bucky Barnes Plumbing-dude agrees.

Clint’s still looking forlornly at his empty coffee pot when finally there’s a knock on his door and he runs to open it. “Thank fuck you’re- oh.”

Plumber-dude is drop dead gorgeous and makes Clint stop in his tracks. He’s got dark brown hair, tied back messily in a bun, and scruff covering the bottom half of his face which makes Clint think he really had just rolled out of bed and driven to the apartment. The name tag says Bucky Barnes. Go figure. Bucky raises a questioning eyebrow at Clint, which urges him to keep talking.

“I – yeah – so my water’s broken –”

“Your water broke?”

“Yeah – wait! No! There’s no water coming out of the faucet –”

Clint can’t be blamed for sounding like an idiot. It isn’t past ten in the morning yet and he hasn’t had his coffee. Also, Bucky the Plumber is very hot and very distracting, especially when he’s smiling like that. Why is he smiling like that?

“Now that’s a problem I’m qualified to fix,” Bucky says, grinning, showing off pearly whites, and steps past Clint into the apartment, swinging his toolbox to the side so he doesn’t knock Clint out with it, and that’s how Clint’s eyes get drawn to the strong, muscular arm holding the toolbox, tendons sticking out and adorned with a full sleeve [tattoo.](http://tattooideascenter.com/wp-content/uploads/Biomechanical-Sleeve-and-Chest.jpg)  

Clint’s mouth goes dry. He wants to lick that arm.

He clears his throat and points Bucky to the kitchen where there’s evidence of Clint’s previous struggle: everything in the cupboard under the sink pulled out and scattered on the floor, a spanner that Clint had dug up from somewhere laying in the sink where he’d thrown it down last, and a sad, empty coffee pot rolling on its side on the counter.

Bucky eyes it all and realises he’d better get to it before Clint does anything else drastic.

“Alright, I’ll get to it. I’ll be done in half an hour tops, and you can get to your coffee,” he says knowingly, and crouches down, setting his toolbox to the side and gets to work.

Clint pretends to busy himself with the newspaper at the kitchen table, eyes flicking up every now and again to Bucky – okay, so the rarer occasion is when his eyes are actually on the newspaper and not on Bucky’s back, glancing intently at the sliver of skin between the belted waistband of his pants and the hem of his shirt that’s ridden up.

He startles when there’s a sudden loud cry of, “Mother _fucker_ ,” from the sink, and Bucky jumps backward with a jet of water spraying him and the kitchen all over. He manages to stop the flow by getting a boot on the leak and jamming the pipe screw, but most of the kitchen floor is wet and his shirt is completely soaked through.

“Sorry,” he says, turning to Clint, giving him an apologetic smile. “I’ll clean everything up, I swear.” He spends a moment trying to wring his shirt dry, but it’s to no avail and eventually he gives up and just pulls the thing off and hangs it on the oven door handle to dry.

Clint’s eyes just about pop right out of his head when Bucky bends down again to get back to work, his back now completely exposed so Clint can see the muscles tensing under smooth, tan skin. It gets worse – much, _much_ worse, when Bucky stands up to fix one of the pipes running along the wall, having to reach up above his head to do so. Clint stares, he doesn’t even try to hide it. He’s got a bit of drool at the corner of his lips when Bucky finally turns around, arms spread wide – and oh no, the front is just as bad as the back, hel _lo_ six pack – and declares he’s finished.

Bucky’s no fool. He knows exactly how good he looks, and maybe he’s been a little smitten on Clint’s bed rumpled look ever since he first came to the door.

He grins a shit-eating grin at Clint.

“Are you gonna ask me to stay for coffee or what?”

“ _Fuck you.”_


	7. Fluff - Baaabies

“See, I’m not the only one who likes pulling on your hair.” Clint smirked, coming up to Bucky from behind, wrapping arms around his waist. Bucky’s own arms were otherwise occupied by a giggling two year old girl, busy clutching at Bucky’s shoulder length hair and tugging, none too gently. Bucky winced, wriggling metal fingers in May’s face to distract her, but all that got him was a small hand slapping his fingers away, reaching for his hair again.

“Somehow, it’s better when you do it,” he sighed, though there wasn’t a bit of him that was complaining. He bounced May gently in his arms, and Clint peaked up from behind Bucky’s shoulder, surprising her. She squealed delightedly, and Clint’s face then became the object of her hands’ fascination.

“Handsy one, aren’t ya, squirt?” Clint scrunched up his nose, only just managing to avoid a tiny finger sticking into his eye. Bucky laughed, though it was hardly discernable over May’s gleeful squeals as Clint made funny faces at her.

“Gosh, you’re gorgeous,” Bucky quipped, when Clint pulled a particularly horrendous one, though May giggled at it like it was the best thing in the world. Clint didn’t even seem to realise how bad the faces were, completely captured in baby-mode.

Bucky had a voice recording of Clint talking baby-talk with May, when he’d thought no one was around.

“Shut up, you love it,” Clint said, breaking out of his ‘baby-mode’ long enough to fix Bucky with a smug look.

“Your face? Yeah, I kinda do.” Bucky grinned cheesily, and earned himself an eye roll from Clint, and also a kiss, Clint leaning in around May who was still sitting happily in Bucky’s arms. May clapped her hands excitedly at the kiss, and when Clint drew away, cried out, “My turn!” and promptly placed her own a big, wet smooch to the tip of Bucky’s nose.

Clint chuckled. “Hey, lay off my man, missy,” he teased, wriggling his fingers at May and tickling her tummy and sending her into another screaming fit of giggles.

The happy noises seemed to cut across the humdrum of the rest of the room, and eventually reached the ears of Mary Jane and Peter. And as always, playtime with May came to an end for Clint and Bucky.

MJ came striding over, looking not at all pleased. “I _knew_ it was you two again,” she huffed, petting her daughter’s hair when the little girl reached out. “You can’t keep stealing my child, Barton.”

Clint looked offended, “Hey! Why do you assume it was _me_ who—“

“It was you the last _five_ times—“

“Bucky helped!”

“Bucky is _no_ better! Stop stealing my child. Get your own.” She coaxed May out of Bucky’s arms and gave them both a stern look before leaving to find Peter to tell him that he could stop looking for their baby. May waved over her mother’s shoulder, “Bye bye Kinty! Bye bye Buckee!”

Bucky and Clint were both helpless but to wave back, Bucky blowing her a kiss. Clint sighed and leaned against Bucky. “Well, this night just got a whole lot duller.”

“Nuh-uh, look. Luke and Jessica just got here. You distract them, I’ll get Danni.”


End file.
